The Song Of Songs Part 25

Nevertheless, when they reached the hotel where they were received by the proprietor and clerks with enthusiastic bowing and sc.r.a.ping, and Lilly felt a stream of light, sound, and warmth pouring toward her, the fleeting thought beset her again:

"If I were to say I had left something in the coach, and were to run away and never come back?"

She was already walking up the steps on his arm.

They were ushered into a large, awe-inspiring room with a flowered carpet and a bare, three-armed chandelier.

In one corner was a huge bed, with high carved top and tail boards, smoothly covered with a white counterpane.

She looked about in vain for another bed.

"St. Joseph!" shot through her mind.

The colonel--when thinking of him, she always called him the colonel still--behaved as if he were at home in the room. He grumbled a bit, fussed with the lights, and threw his overcoat in a corner.

She remained leaning against the wall.

"If I want to flee now," she thought, "I shall have to throw myself out of the window."

"Don't you intend to budge until to-morrow morning?" he said. "If so, I'll engage your services as a clothes horse."

A smirking calm seemed to have come over him, as if he were at last sure of his possession.

He threw himself in a corner of the sofa, lighted a cigarette, and looked at her with a connoisseur's gaze, while she slowly divested herself of her cloak and drew out her hatpin with hesitating fingers.

A knock at the door.

A waiter entered bearing a tray with cold dishes and a silver-throated bottle.

"Champagne again?" asked Lilly, who still had a slightly sickish feeling.

"The very thing," he said, pouring a foaming jet into the goblets. "It gives a little girl courage to dedicate the lovely nightgown waiting for her in the trunk."

She clinked gla.s.ses with him in obedience to his demand, but scarcely moistened her lips with the wine.

He jokingly took her to task, and she pled:

"I shouldn't like to be drunk on such a sacred evening."

Her answer seemed to gratify him immensely. He burst into a noisy laugh, and observed:

"All the better, all the better!"

He attempted to draw her down to him, but contact with him made her uneasy, and she eluded his grasp with a quick movement.

"You said you wanted me to hunt for the nightgown."

She knelt at the trunk, which she herself had packed the night before, lifted the trays out, and from near the bottom fetched out the nebulous, lacy creation, which was one of the many things he had bought her before the wedding.

She looked about for a retreat, but nowhere on earth was there escape from that pair of eyes which swimming in desire followed her every movement.

Hesitating, faint-hearted she stood there, her fingers hanging to her collar, which she did not venture to unfasten.

Growing impatient he jumped up.

He was about to seize her, but the look she gave him was so full of despair that a knightly impulse bade him desist.

To account for his action he picked up a roll of paper that had dropped from the trunk while she had been rummaging for the nightgown.

Lilly saw something white gleam between his dark fingers.

"The Song of Songs!" occurred to her.

With a cry she jumped on him and tried to s.n.a.t.c.h away the roll. But his hand held it as in a vice.

He defended himself with ease, laughing all the time.

The thought that the secret of her life had strayed into alien hands, deprived her of her senses. She cried, she screamed, she beat him with her fists.

The matter began to look suspicious. A doubt as to the virginity of her soul, yea, even of her body, began to a.s.sail him.

"One moment, little girl," he said. "There are no nooks or crannies for hiding in now. Either you'll kindly let me see what this is without further delay, or I'll take you between my knees and hold you so fast you won't be able to move a muscle."

Lilly took to pleading.

"Colonel, dear, _dear_ colonel! A few sheets of music, and some songs, that's all, I swear to you, _dear_ colonel."

The droll innocence of her plea stirred his emotions; that humble, unconscious "colonel" set him laughing again. Besides, the daughter of a musician, as he knew her to be, might be expected to have ambitions.

"You yourself probably compose?" he asked.

"No--no--no--it's not that," she moaned. "But don't look in--give it back to me--if you don't, I'll jump out of the window. I will, by G.o.d and all the saints!"

She pleased him so well with her eyes stretched in deadly terror, with her hair loosened by the struggle, with the expression of a tragic muse on the sweet, delicately cut child's face, that he wanted to enjoy the rare sight a little longer.

Accordingly, he a.s.sumed a black expression, and pretended to be what a few moments ago he had actually been.

She fell on her knees, and clasping his legs, stammered and whispered, almost choked with shame and distress:

"If you give it back to me, you can do with me whatever you want. I will do whatever you want. I won't resist any more."

The bargain, it struck him, was to his advantage.

"Shake hands on it?" he asked.

"Shake hands," she replied. "And never ask questions--yes?"

"If you swear to me by your St. Joseph it's nothing but music."